Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Alright,

my query for my WIP (Elementum) is currently in the feedback forum, but I have some questions that maybe you all can help with that would make my life so much easier.

1. My WIP is a rotating POV story, with four central characters. They are all equally important and have about the same face time in the ms, but when I try to write the query, it gets muddled because it's hard to cover that many character. What do I do? I can't justify not mentioning them, because if I get a request, the agent is going to have a total curve ball thrown at them when random POV's start showing up that weren't mentioned in the query. Ugh.

2. I, like most people, am having genre trouble. My ms is aimed at 16-24 year olds -- too old for YA, to young (in my opinion) to be adult. I heard a rumors of a new genre for this age, but i don't think we could start querying under that yet.

Any help would be great!

CV

I've read your query and have a few questions/observations.

1. I would call Elementum and adult fantasy novel. Aren't most 16-24 year-olds reading adult stuff by that age?

2. Is there any correlation between the four elements and the four characters? For instance, does each character hold the power of a different element or come from a different nation? You mentioned one of the characters had the power of fire so I wondered if others did too - like airbenders and firebenders. It might make a difference to me as a reader to know that. If not, no biggie. Just wondered.

3. You could break the query up into four SHORT paragraphs, one dedicated to each character and the choice/conflict that pulls him/her into the story. A one or two sentence character introduction followed by what's at stake for them personally, and then summarize with another SHORT paragraph about the larger, overall stakes for the nation/world if the bad guys win. I like the four characters angle because it might lend some organizational structure to the query.

4. If you stick to a timeline presentation of plot points for your query then you could always just add a line after your word count that says: Told from the POV of each of the four main characters.

Best of luck! Sounds like an exciting story.

Just for clarification -- Yes, each of the characters has an element, because there are six people groups. (Fire, water, earth, air, moon, sun) But the characters do not have powers that correlate to their elements. It's more of a racial division than anything supernatural. But that's all in the back story.

That might work, I'll have to take a look at breaking it down in that manner.

CV

I think the new in-between genre is called 'new adult'. Kristin Nelson has mentioned it a few times on her blog.

Hi Charlee, this is a tricky one. I read your query too, and I can see what you're talking about in terms of the POV.

I guess I might try it alittle differently. If you separate the character lines, it can get too long and confusing. I might try to combine them.

You might try starting right off with 'This is a story told by four people', then synthesize and summarize in the same way that you do in your last paragraph. Then, you're focused more on the story. For the agent, this might make the storyline jump out, which is what you really want to do here. The agent doesn't need to know the ins and outs of each character, they want to get an overview of the whole book. So, you're mapping the overall theme and story arc.

I hope that's helpful....

In terms of what to call it, adults read YA, too, so I might just keep it at YA fantasy, which is a hot genre.....

Good luck!

Yeah, I agree with Mira. That makes much more sense. On all counts.

Yeah, I'll have to try that. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to look at the query again.

I'll probably keep it at YA fantasy, or do as Nathan suggested and market as 'New adult' with the quotation marks so that they know it's approximate placement.

I figure the genre can be changed later. If an agent likes the project they're going to like it regardless of genre right?

CV

Down the Well - thanks! I thought you had some points, too. Your direction could work really well.

Charlee - Nathan addressed this? Oh. Never mind. He might know a thing or two about this. :)